Against my better judgment, I'm not friends-locking this one

[tim]

I used to think that arguing on the Internet was a way of procrastinating, and that if I got into an argument it would distract me for the rest of the afternoon because hey, I'm a lazy procrastinator. Now I'm not so sure. I don't want to appropriate the language of triggers, because I'd rather leave that for the people who actually have PTSD (and I'm not one of them, as far as I know). But I am tempted to appropriate it because I'm not sure how else I can talk about the physical effect on me that it has when someone makes a boundary-crossing remark (usually not personally directed at me, but at a group I'm part of, for example); I engage because it's my reflex to; and they respond by shitting all over boundaries even more so. It's a heart-racing, dreading-opening-up-the-next-reply but doing it anyway and then it just gets worse kind of thing. And then I either stay in the argument, or do other equally non-productive things because my ability to focus on anything else is ruined for the next few minutes, the next few hours, or the whole day, depending.

Knowing what I know now, I'm less inclined to explain it in terms of conscious mechanisms (I don't want to do work -- or I don't want to go to bed -- so I procrastinate by seeking out wrong people on the Internet so I can tell them they're wrong) and more inclined to explain it in terms of subconscious mechanisms. Except I don't know how the latter work, or how to talk about it, or whether that even applies to me because my mental health is "not that bad". This doesn't tend to happen to me when arguing about anything work-related, and it doesn't even always happen when arguing about politics. That, I think, has less to do with the content, and more to do with how invalidating the other person is being (which is why the Mozilla code of conduct discussions ruined my ability to do much work for a few weeks -- but that's another post I'm still writing); while there are some technical communities where emotional invalidation is common in technical discussions, I'm fortunate to be in one that's not like that. (It's happened a few times in work-related discussions at places where I used to work; essentially hasn't happened in those discussions in the past year, though.)

I don't recall being actively invalidated or dismissed as being a big part of my early life (although being ignored sure was). I'm almost tempted to posit some sort of collective memory shared by abuse survivors that would explain why it's so upsetting to me to feel like I'm actively not being listened to or not being heard (when someone replies to what they think I said, or to what I represent in their mind, rather than what I said), when I don't have clear memories of having experienced that early on in life. Then again, there's a lot I can't remember.

Does anyone have ways of explaining / thinking about this kind of thing that doesn't step on anyone else's feet? I'm not sure any of this is even understandable; hi.

Comments

[tim]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply! That sounds cheesy, but this comment really did make me think, and I suspect I will continue thinking about it for quite a while. Particularly this:

a very insightful and well educated anxious person who was not able to work or take proper care of herself.

rings true for me (modulo pronoun), except that I've always been able to work, but I've also frequently been amazed at my ability to continue to find jobs and not get fired, given how much of the time I spend in a state where having to think or make a choice, no matter how small, immediately tells my brain "something bad is going to happen and you can stave it off by reloading Facebook 17 times". If I do have some form of PTSD (and I've been told there's no such thing as "minor PTSD", though idk if that's true) then it's not just due to dealing with cissexism or with wrong people on the Internet, but with my early life, but that's stuff I don't have the energy to explain right now. Suffice it to say, it's an "It wasn't that bad... but I know you're not supposed to compare and contrast your experience with that of more-traumatized friends... but no really, it wasn't that bad... but why do I feel like I have to minimize it?" sort of thing. Which I gather is fairly common.

[cleverthylacine]

I don't think PTSD is ever "minor" but I do think there are degrees of impairment when it comes to functionality; for instance, there are people who can't work because of their PTSD, and you and I both hold down jobs. That's what I meant by "low-level"; not that it isn't a completely serious mental illness, but rather that there are people who can function in the working world and manage their lives despite the impairments, and there are also people who can't.

'Suffice it to say, it's an "It wasn't that bad... but I know you're not supposed to compare and contrast your experience with that of more-traumatized friends... but no really, it wasn't that bad... but why do I feel like I have to minimize it?" sort of thing. Which I gather is fairly common.'

That's more or less exactly how I feel about mine. It doesn't seem nearly as terrible as things that have happened to other people I care about (even though some of those folks are more functional and less obviously damaged than I am, in some cases), and I want to minimise it, but when I see things on TV that look normal to me, other people are pretty horrified sometimes, and I have at least one friend who can't read some of the fiction I write because the family dynamics I write between people who like each other much better than my family does upset her too much!

I've done a lot of thinking about why I want to minimise things and not admit that I am still suffering from injuries that were done me by people who certainly don't think about me very much any more, and I've come to the conclusion that for me, at least, it's a way my mind has of protecting me from feeling how terrifyingly powerless I've been and could be again, so that I don't sit there wibbling about it but rather take the actions I need to take to prevent it, even if I do reload Dreamwidth 18 times when I feel freaked out by choices I have to make or things people said to me.

That may or may not be helpful for you but it's something to think about?

And thanks for your reply--I know it can take a while to formulate a reply to something like this from a near stranger, but at the same time, I was a little worried that I'd offended you!

[tim]

And thanks for your reply--I know it can take a while to formulate a reply to something like this from a near stranger, but at the same time, I was a little worried that I'd offended you!

Nah, I was just suffering from "person writes worthwhile comment so I take forever to reply because I feel like I have to write something worthwhile too" syndrome :-)

but when I see things on TV that look normal to me, other people are pretty horrified sometimes, and I have at least one friend who can't read some of the fiction I write because the family dynamics I write between people who like each other much better than my family does upset her too much!

Yeah, my equivalent of that was that I didn't realize until I was in college that not everybody hated their parents. I genuinely thought that no one would voluntarily spend time with their parents once they were an adult and no longer dependent on them, and that everybody only did so out of a sense of obligation. I guess most people don't grow up thinking that...

at least, it's a way my mind has of protecting me from feeling how terrifyingly powerless I've been and could be again, so that I don't sit there wibbling about it but rather take the actions I need to take to prevent it

Yeah, I hear that. The other way that seems common that some people have of believing that they aren't/weren't powerless is blaming themselves for whatever abuse they experienced ("I deserved it because I was a really bad person. Even... when I was 5.") I never believed that outright, I always resisted it intellectually, but I also kind of wonder what I've internalized and buried that might be causing me to self-sabotage without being aware of it.

[cleverthylacine]

It is STILL a shock and a surprise to me sometimes that people like their parents. (Well, I do like my father. But he changed and apologised.)

Also I have found that I can be manipulated by people who have actually been real shits to their families if I am not careful; I had an ex who played the abusive parents card for all it was worth only to find out after we broke up that he had abused his sister and that was why his parents had a problem with him.

And so with you on internalised self-sabotage.